Musings on a Life in the Theatre, Tablet PC's, Cultural Issues, (oh, and the occasional emu sighting...)

9 posts categorized "Food and Drink"

December 31, 2010

Well, when this video was shot it wasn't New Year's Eve, although it sure looks like it was. Part of the family (and a few other guests) were at The Lake Geneva School of Cooking on Tuesday, December 28th for a real treat. We all took a cooking class, prepared a delicious meal and enjoyed the fruits of our labors thanks to Chef John Bogan and his staff. Thomasin and I did the dessert (yeah, it involved chocolate) and others took on more grueling tasks.

Let me tell you this is was a pure delight and well worth the effort and expense. You get to learn something new, meet some new friends, and share in preparing a meal that you're all going to enjoy at the end. We had a blast, the food was fantastic, and the ambience was perfect. Talk about your bread and circuses!

So, why the post now, on New Year's Eve? Well, Chef John called this a New Year's celebration from the get go and we pretended all night that we were heading to that magic countdown. As you can see from the video, he even regaled us with his accordion as we sang Auld Lang Syne. Please keep in mind we were all several sheets to the wind by this point.

So, given that I'm under the weather here tonight on the real New Year's Eve and not planning on much partying, I figured this video was a good substitute.

I hope you and yours have the Happiest of New Years and that this year is the one that makes it all happen for you.

May 03, 2009

Most of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival for 2009 is over. Today is Sunday in the Park day where the Midway that has occupied downtown moves to the park, but as I write this it is raining so I’m guessing it will be a slow day there. While it threatened rain all day yesterday, it never fell after the early morning so the big day went off on schedule and the Grand Feature Parade was fun as usual.

I say over and over again about this event that it is small town America at its finest. You get a mixture of floats, bands, beauty queens, politicians, cartoon characters, clowns, elephants, mascots, military units, motorcycles, tractors, antique cars, celebrities, vendors selling all forms of trinkets and snacks, cuteness and the bizarre. All of this is thrown in with more parties than could possibly be attended.

I remember 10 years ago when our season at Wayside Theatre started a few weeks earlier than it does now. Our actors were coming in that weekend and at the time we had apartments along one of the routes where parade units were staged. I warned good friend John Alcott not to be too dismayed when he woke up the next morning and found elephants outside his dwelling. Sure enough, he called me saying he couldn’t believe it but there were elephants outside his window. When you give up an entire town to some big parades and big parties, you never know what you’ll find outside your door. Or who you’ll find in your house as the partiers just pass from house to house.

The crowd gets progressively happier as the drinking goes on, and because the parade is a long one (3 + hours) the crowd also becomes vaguely and alternately interested and disinterested. Each parade(The Firefighters Parade takes place Friday night and the Grand Feature parade on Saturday) eventually becomes two parades as folks walk up and down the parade route heading from house to house and party to party stopping along the way as they pass friends along the way.

Pink and green (the official colors are everywhere and on every conceivable garment or accessory. It is extremely informal and occasionally someone will rush out to give a hug or a high five to someone passing along in the parade. Yesterday, we witnessed an interesting incident occur when former Pittsburg Steeler Jack Ham was driven by. A fan rushed out to shake hands and Ham waved him away saying he didn’t want to touch anybody. Don’t know if that was just his own celebrity/personal space rule or brought on by the swine flu, but it happened.

GE (we have a local plant here) was tossing out 130 year life light bulbs to the crowd. They also had a dancing light bulb who looked suspiciously like a ghost. We called him Casper the Friendly Light Bulb. Large $100 bills and $1 million dollar bills with Obama’s picture and some sort of way too wordy for a drunk parade watching crowd were being passed out.

As in past years the highlights of the parade were several Bolivian dance groups. Adorned in colorful and noisy costumes these folks dance some pretty amazing routines and seem to be in constant motion throughout the parade. They really are fun to watch.

One other interesting thing I note at each of these parades. It seems every high school band now has a contingent of parents and supporters marching behind and along side who carry bottles of water and rush in and out of the ranks offering a quick drink of water or a quick spritz. I guess I’m just too old, but I remember marching in long parades like this in wool uniforms with no sips of water in sight.

Things change but it seems the parade of life always marches on.

Enjoy the pictures after the break. I’ll post up some videos later if I get the chance. Some of the pictures are from the early morning when I did my duty judging the floats, some are from the parade itself. Many more pictures here.

One of the fun parts of the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is heading to the Midway to eat food that you try to avoid all year long. It’s greasy, it’s fattening, and it’s fun. Funnel cake is always a big hit as are sausages, barbeque, and all sorts of flavors of all sorts of things fattening.

As I was heading to judge the float in the morning I saw this guy making up one of my favorites. Call them chips, call the fries, call the elephant ears, call them ribbon fries, it doesn’t matter, I’m a sucker for them. Who knew that a drill was a part of the process.

May 01, 2009

It looked and felt like rain. But then about 45 minutes before the Firefighters Parade the skies cleared up and the sun came out and so did the crowds. Looks like the 2009 Apple Blossom Festival is off to a good start.

Actually it has been going on for several days now with parties and other events but it really swings into gear with the Firefighters Parade. Traditionally this Friday night parade is followed by fireworks but not this year. With the economy down this was one of the things dropped from the festivities this year. Too bad. They were always fun.

We’ve been selling seats along the parade route as a fundraiser for Wayside Theatre and will do so tomorrow as well for the Grand Feature parade. This is our first year participating in this tradition (thanks to a former board member who let us use the street in front of his house.) It is amazing to walk the parade route through town and see the sidewalks lined with chairs. In fact it is amazing to see the entire downtown completely blocked to traffic and folks strolling up and down the streets.

Tonight was fun. I’m sure tomorrow will bring also sorts of fun and adventure as well. Here are some photos and more located here.

March 29, 2009

A Internet Spy Network is stealing government secrets in 103 countries and China is the suspect. Anyone surprised by this? Via the New York Times.

The new Microsoft commercials that smack at Apple’s higher prices are getting the Apple fan’s dander up. Some responses are quite passionate. Maybe, I don’t remember this accurately, but it seems like the reaction is much larger than when the I’m a Mac/PC commercials first debuted.

Last night we had Earth Hour and folks around the globe turned things off. (I didn’t because I couldn’t rehearse in the dark, but, hey.) Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts decided to turn lights on to counter the effort. Amazing. While I’m not saying the Earth Hour move was necessarily anything larger than a big symbol, some of the actions of those seeking an opposite action give the term “childish” a bad rep. Check out this list.

Live productions are now slowly going digital. We’re having requests for this at Wayside Theatre, but the costs are prohibitive at the moment. Michael Parekh has a good post on this .

October 23, 2008

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Some students from Rice University are trying to add a genetically altered version of resveratrol to beer. They’ve got a brewery helping them out. If you don’t know, resveratrol is the chemical that supposedly fights cancer, is found naturally in grapes, and of course is then an ingredient in red wine.

I can just see the ads now. Less filling, tastes great, and cures cancer.

August 03, 2008

Not that I’m going to rush out and drink any of the stuff, but ah, the nostalgia. Schlitz, the Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous, is back on the shelves according to this article on MSNBC. Apparently after being dormant for awhile and suffering from ridicule from monkeying with the formula, Pabst is bringing it back using the old formula.

This was the first beer I ever tasted, primarily because it was the beer of choice for my dad.

As it slowly rolls out, I imagine it will catch on quickly. Apparently they can’t keep it on the shelves in Milwaukee.

July 21, 2008

Now the FDA says it is looking into jalapeno peppers from a Texas plant as a possible cause of the recent salmonella outbreak. But hold on, I love this quote from the MSNBC article:

But it doesn't mean Mexican jalapenos are the culprit — the pepper may not have been contaminated on the farm. And while tomatoes currently are safe to eat, health officials also said the finding does not exonerate tomatoes that were sold earlier in the year.

Well, we certainly don't want any exonerated tomatoes around these parts, I'll tell you that.

June 21, 2008

Now, I enjoy a good Mentos and Coke explosion when I see one, but my goodness this is quite an extravaganza. Students at Latvia's Business University Turbia decided to set a new world record, dropping Mentos in 1,911 bottles of Coke. Where did they get all the plastic raincoats?